Child Development

Long considered the gold standard, the Canadian edition of this best-selling topical approach to child development continues its tradition of being the most current and comprehensive text available.

 

Laura Berk, renowned professor and researcher in the field of child development, added new pedagogy, a heightened emphasis on the interplay between biology and environment, expanded coverage of culture, and enhanced the focus on education, health, and social issues, including many social policy topics addressed throughout the text. Berk’s revision provides contemporary and cohesive coverage on contexts for development, including but also extending beyond the family to peers, schooling, media, neighbourhoods, communities, and societal values and priorities.

 

In the Canadian adaptation of Child Development, Berk has expanded the Canadian content and offered an integrated North American representation of the field. This balanced North American perspective provides students with a greatly enriched opportunity to learn about social and cultural contexts for development. Berk presents both classic and emerging theories in an especially clear, engaging writing style, with a multitude of research-based and real-world examples. Strengthening the connections between theory and applications, this edition's extensive revision highlights the most recent scholarship in the field, giving students an especially clear and coherent understanding of the sequence and underlying processes of child development. The effective topical organization consistently emphasizes the interrelatedness of all development — physical, cognitive, emotional, and social — throughout the text narrative and in special features.

About the Author

 

Laura E. Berk is Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Illinois State University, where she has taught child development to both undergraduate and graduate students for more than three decades. She received her bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of California, Berkeley, and her master’s and doctoral degrees in early childhood development and education from the University of Chicago. She has been a visiting scholar at Cornell University, UCLA, Stanford University, and the University of South Australia.

 

Berk has published widely on the effects of school environments on children’s development, the development of private speech, and most recently the role of make-believe play in development. Her research has been funded by the U.S. Office of Education and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. It has appeared in many prominent journals, including Child Development, Developmental Psychology, Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, Development and Psychopathology, and Early Childhood Research Quarterly. Her empirical studies have attracted the attention of the general public, leading to contributions to Psychology Today and Scientific American.

 

Berk has served as a research editor for Young Children and consulting editor for Early Childhood Research Quarterly and the Journal of Cognitive Education and Psychology. She is a frequent contributor to edited volumes on early childhood development, having recently authored chapters on the importance of parenting, on make-believe play and self-regulation, and on the kindergarten child. She has also written the chapter on the extracurriculum for the Handbook of Research on Curriculum (American Educational Research Association), the chapter on development for The Many Faces of Psychological Research in the Twenty-First Century (Society for Teachers of Psychology), the article on Vygotsky for the Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science, and a chapter on storytelling as a teaching strategy for Voices of Experience: Memorable Talks from the National Institute on the Teaching of Psychology (American Psychological Society).

 

Berk’s books include Private Speech: From Social Interaction to Self-Regulation, Scaffolding Children’s Learning: Vygotsky and Early Childhood Education, and Landscapes of Development: An Anthology of Readings. In addition to Child Development, she is author of the best-selling texts Infants, Children, and Adolescents and Development Through the Lifespan, published by Allyn and Bacon. Her book for parents and teachers is Awakening Children’s Minds: How Parents and Teachers Can Make a Difference.

 

Berk is active in work for children’s causes. In addition to service in her home community, she is a member of the national board of directors of Jumpstart, a nonprofit organization that provides early literacy intervention to thousands of poverty-stricken preschoolers across the United States, using college and university students as interveners.

 

About the Contributor

 

Stuart G. Shanker received his doctorate from Oxford University and is Distinguished Research Professor of Philosophy and Psychology at Atkinson College, York University, in Toronto, Canada. He is Director of the Milton and Ethel Harris Research Initiative at York University, an interdisciplinary centre for developmental, evolutionary, and clinical studies. He also serves as Co-Director of the Council of Human Development, an international initiative whose goals are to promote the early development of children. He is the Chair for Canada of the Interdisciplinary Council of Learning and Developmental Disorders, and Chair of the Scientific Review Board of the Great Ape Trust of Iowa.

 

Among his recent publications are The First Idea: How Symbols, Language, and Intelligence Evolved from Our Primate Ancestors to Modern Humans (with Stanley Greenspan); Toward a Psychology of Global Interdependency: A Framework for International Collaboration (with Stanley Greenspan); Apes, Language, and the Human Mind (with Sue Savage-Rumbaugh and Talbot Taylor); and Wittgenstein’s Remarks on the Foundations of AI.